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Legislative News and Views - Rep. Rob Ecklund (DFL)

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Legislative Update – April 29, 2022

Friday, April 29, 2022

Hello Northlanders,

The House continues working this week to continue advancing our budget bills off the floor. We’re committed to using our significant budget surplus to help Minnesotans with rising costs, strengthen opportunities for our students, and make other investments to build a state that works better for everyone.

We’ve also reached a bipartisan agreement to replenish the state’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund - preventing a tax on businesses - and to deliver bonus payments to over 600,000 front-line workers. This bill is an important step forward to recognize the difficulties our businesses and our workers have encountered over the last two years.

Tackling CWD and Strengthening Our Outdoor Heritage

Over the past couple of years, I’ve worked on solutions to prevent the spread of chronic wasting disease in our wild white-tailed deer population. Unaddressed, the spread of CWD could put our state’s cherished deer hunting traditions in jeopardy. Our House Agriculture budget, includes a moratorium on new white-tailed deer farms, a frequent source of CWD. The Environment and Natural Resources bill also has solutions I offered to address CWD, including a requirement for live-testing of farmed deer for CWD, a prohibition on importing farmed deer from other states with CWD, and a ban on new registrations for the possession of farmed white-tailed deer.

Separately, the legislation invests more than $275 million in preserving our environment and natural resources for current and future generations of Minnesotans. The bill also includes my proposals to invest in trails, including the Prospector Trail System and Voyageur Country Trail System, and Rat Root River walleye stocking. In addition to providing funding for parks and trails throughout the state, the bill reinstates the percentage of the lottery in lieu tax that was originally dedicated to the environment. The bill contains $10 million to help the tourism industry recover and $1.2 million for No Child Left Inside, a grant program that helps get children and teenagers outdoors. Read more about these investments here.

We’ve also passed our House Legacy bill, including investments from the Outdoor Heritage Fund, and the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund bill, which includes investments from lottery proceeds.

Investments in Broadband

Earlier this week the House also approved $25 million in additional investments in broadband infrastructure. Since 2014, we’ve invested $104 million in the state’s Border-to-Border Broadband Grant Program to expand access to unserved and underserved areas. High-speed broadband isn’t just a luxury anymore. It’s absolutely critical for students to do schoolwork, for businesses to sell products and participate in global commerce, and for families to communicate with one another. Additionally, the bill changes the local match requirements to help more communities qualify for the grants.

This won’t be our final broadband bill this session, and I’ll keep working to deliver greater investments, along with making sure we utilize federal resources to the fullest extent so more homes and businesses can have the internet access Minnesotans deserve.

Supporting Our Veterans

This week, the House also approved our Veterans & Military Affairs budget bill, which continues our commitment to ending veteran homelessness and veteran suicide, two critical, interconnected issues. The bill offers funding for short-term, emergency housing, as well as funding to get more veterans on the path to long-term, permanent housing. The bill funds a series of strategies aimed at preventing veteran suicide including veteran-to-veteran connections at hospitals and education about safe gun storage. Additionally, the bill includes enlistment and reenlistment bonuses for National Guard members, service bonuses to post-9/11-era veterans and Gold Star families, and increases funding for County Veteran Services Offices and grants to Veteran Service Organizations.

New Opportunities for Students

The House Education budget delivers over $3 billion in new investments in our students and schools. It focuses on literacy, mental health support, and early learning. Significantly, it invests $475 million to allow schools to hire about 1,100 more counselors, social workers, psychologists, and nurses, who all play a critical role in student success and development, and addresses school districts’ unfunded special education and English learner costs.

All Minnesota students deserve a world-class education and after a couple of challenging years, these investments will support a stronger future for all students.

Please contact me with your feedback and ideas, or if I can ever be of assistance. It’s an honor to represent you.

Sincerely,

Rob Ecklund
State Representative